Mathias flung Braden's body away. He stood for a moment, staring at his hands in disgust before he knelt beside me. "What has changed, Mairin?" he asked. "What does it matter if I kill? You cannot love me and I do not wish to live without you...without your love. I thought I could leave you, but I didn't even make it out of Highland Home before I returned to find you at my home. I might have tried to leave again if the mongrel hadn't called to tell me he'd taken you after you'd left the house."
Xavier stepped out of the shadows and answered Mathias. "It does matter, leech," he said. "If you can choose to not kill, you might be worth saving."
Mathias stared blankly Xavier, who nodded once to the cats around the field. They closed in on Braden, surrounding the kneeling quarterback. "You proved us wrong tonight," Xavier said to Braden. "Always we have taken the side of humans and part human creatures over wholly supernatural beings. Mairin told me we were wrong, but I didn't believe her until now. We'll be watching you, demigod." He turned back to Mathias. "Maybe this crappy little town might be more interesting if we keep you around, but remember, we'll be watching you."
Xavier slipped a cell phone from his pocket and dialed 911. The siren rose and fell in the darkness outside the football stadium, shrieking like a banshee.
"Better figure out what you're going to tell the paramedics when they get here," he said. "I'm thinking she tripped over the railing."
I nodded, shrieking when the movement ground the ends of my broken ribs together.
"Another time, then, kitty," Mathias growled, smiling broadly.
"Anytime, leech," Xavier agreed. "You're both nuts," I whispered. The darkness claimed me then, leaving me to wonder if the vampire and the werepanther could refrain from killing each other while we waited for the paramedics.
*** My mom and Tawnya met us at the hospital. I could see from the way they watched Mathias that I'd have a ton of questions to answer when I was feeling better. Tawnya may have admitted that she'd been wrong about Mathias, but that had been when she was safe to say so, when Mathias had been gone from Highland Home. Now that she saw he hadn't left, I was sure she'd give me problems about him. I'd have to deal with that problem when it came to a head. For now, I focused on breathing.
"Mairin, you scared me to death tonight. You are never to do anything like that again. What possessed you to go tearing out of our house in the middle of the night?" Mom tried to hug me, but couldn't find a way to get close to me through the hospital equipment.
"Dream," was all I could whisper. I knew she wouldn't ask any more questions once she understood a dream had sent me into the night looking to help someone. I was right. She nodded once and continued to watch Mathias as the doctors worked around me.
Mathias stood back, watching the doctors work. I saw his eyes widen just once as the doctor set an IV into my arm. The flash of blood in the line was gone quickly, but Mathias had see it and so had I.
"Do you need to go?" I whispered.
He smiled and shook his head. "If you'll have me, I will stay."
When I was strapped, taped and bandaged to within an inch of my life, the doctor told everyone to get out.
Mathias laid his hand in mine and I grasped it frantically. "Don't go," I pleaded. "Not yet."
Mathias turned to the doctor who must have seen something desperate enough in my face to change his mind.
"Five minutes," the doctor said, leaving me alone with Mathias and my family.
"Mom, I need to talk to Mathias. Alone."
"I'll be right outside," she said. She kissed my forehead and pulled Tawnya from the room. Mathias waited until the door closed behind them before gently pulling his hand from my grasp. I tried to recapture it, but he held himself away from me. My heart ached even more deeply than my broken ribs.
"Mathias, I need you to understand," I said. "There is nothing to understand, Mairin," he said. I could see the cold edge creeping into his eyes. "You made yourself quite clear. I only wonder why you came to the field. You should have let that mongrel finish me."
"Never," I said. "Do you want me to suffer an eternity without you?" Mathias jerked as I turned his words back to him.
He closed the space between us quickly. My heart thundered in my chest, the natural beats echoed by the monitor beeping next to the bed. "Why do you continue to taunt me like this?" he asked. "There is nothing else to be said."
"But there is," I said. "What else do you want to say, Mairin? Do you want to be more specific about the ways in which you loathe me? Do you need me to know that your family will be joining with the cats in watching me and my murderous ways?" Bitterness made his words hard and painful. "What else can you possibly need to say to me?" he demanded.
"I love you," I said. "None of if matters, of course, because I'll be gone before morning. I would have been long gone if that mongrel hadn't threatened you....What did you say?"
"I love you."
Mathias blinked slowly. "You love me?"
I nodded, grimacing when the pain snatched at my chest.
"And when did you come to this conclusion?" he asked. He was wary and hesitant, but I saw a flash of the hope I'd seen in his eyes on the football field.
"About three minutes after you appeared in my life," I said. "I'm only sorry I was too much of a coward to tell you sooner."
The muscles in his neck clenched and I could tell he was gritting his teeth. "You love me," he said softly.
"Yes." "No matter what. No matter that I am killer, that I have killed even those who were precious to me in my quest to sate my thirst."
"No matter what," I said. "I can't keep condemning you for doing what I don't have the courage to do for myself. I let others kill so I can eat. I eat food that doesn't volunteer to be my meal. You care enough about your meals to personally see to them, to wait for them to volunteer before you seek to make them food. I want you to live, Mathias. I'm just hoping you can find a way to be okay with what you have to do to live. The guilt isn't good for either of us."
"You are impossibly silly, Mairin," he said fondly, holding up a hand to stop my protest. "And impossible to resist. Would it surprise you to know I'd already made those decisions before that mongrel came for me? That I have been trying to live without death so that I could deserve you? That is why I've been so pale of late. I've been feeding less, being more careful and leaving my donors alive." He took my hand and held it to his cheek. "I find that I am willing to do whatever I can to stay with you."
"I dreamed you had, but I was afraid to hope. I just knew it didn't matter any more. All that matters is that I can't live without you."
"You dreamed of me feeding?"
I nodded. "The girl in the bar. I wanted that dream to be the truth, but I was afraid to ask."
"What else have you dreamed, Mairin?" His eyes were wary.
"Everything. I've seen you hunt. I've seen you mourn your victims. I..." I didn't know how to tell him I'd seen Kathryn die.
"You saw me rise, didn't you."
"Yes."
"And yet you still love me."
"Yes." "Why?" His face was a mask of anguish. "Because you are my sun. You are the light of my life and you are the voice that calls me from my dreams."
Mathias leaned down and I slipped my hand behind his head and pulled his face close to mine. I brushed my lips over his, feeling him clamp them tightly. Always he was afraid I would be infected if he gave in and kissed me, but I had to taste his lips, to seal our love.
"I love you because I know what you are," I said. "You are decent and good and you are the man I love." Mathias groaned, still refusing to open his lips until he turned from my lips to brush his against my neck. Goosebumps rose along the path his lips took down my neck to my shoulder.
"I don't deserve you," he whispered. "But I want you."
"Time is up, young man," the doctor said, stepping close to my bed and hanging a new IV bag above me.
"Of course," Mathias said, kissing my hand before stepping away from me.
&nbs
p; "Don't go," I begged, knowing I meant more than leaving the room.
"Never," he said. "Never again."
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